A wireless communications system generally comprises a set of “subscribers,” typically subscribers are the endpoints of a communication path, and a set of “base stations,” typically stationary and the intermediaries by which a communication path to a subscriber may be established or maintained. In such a system, supporting equipment attached to the base stations, e.g. consoles, typically perform management of the communications in the wireless communications system. Since the supporting equipment is typically stationary, and always present in the wireless communications system, the supporting equipment typically handles the management of emergency messages. That is, the supporting equipment receives subscriber initiated emergency messages, handle the acknowledgements to the emergency messages, and process any resending of the emergency messages and/or acknowledgements.
However, there are instances where the wireless communications system does not have supporting equipment, e.g. where the wireless communications system is of low-cost and having the supporting equipment increases the cost of the wireless communications system. Further, there are instances where subscribers are in communication range of each other but out of range of the base stations attached to the supporting equipment. In both cases, where the subscribers communicate without supporting equipment, management of emergency messages does not exist because there is no supporting equipment to provide the management.
Without the supporting equipment to provide the management of emergency messages, a subscriber may not be certain that an emergency message was properly delivered to its destination, namely another subscriber because subscribers can roam out of range, may be turned off, or may otherwise be unavailable. As such, without management of emergency messages, providing confirmed delivery of an emergency message, that is confirming that a destination subscriber properly received an emergency message, is a challenge. For example, a first police officer in an emergency situation may initiate an emergency message to request backup, but without supporting equipment managing emergency messages, the emergency message is not guaranteed to be delivered to the destination, e.g. another police officer in a neighboring area that may be able to provide backup.
Accordingly, there exists a need for a new system and method for managing emergency alarms in a wireless communications system.
It will be appreciated that for simplicity and clarity of illustration, elements shown in the figures have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements are exaggerated relative to each other. Further, where considered appropriate, reference numerals have been repeated among the figures to indicate identical elements.